Suea rong hai

A fatty cut grilled whole and rested, sliced across the grain, with a sour roasted dip.

Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef, fish sauce, oyster sauce.

Ingredients

the beef

800 g beef brisket or sirloin cap, in one piece
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar
1 teaspoon white pepper

the dip

3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons tamarind paste
1 tablespoon palm sugar
2 teaspoons toasted chilli flakes
2 tablespoons toasted rice powder
2 shallots, finely sliced
3 spring onions, sliced

Method

GRILLED WHOLE AND RESTED BEFORE IT IS CUT. A fatty piece left in one lump keeps its juice while the outside builds a crust; sliced first and grilled as pieces, the same cut dries out in four minutes.
Use a cut with fat running through it. Lean steak makes something perfectly nice that is not this.
Marinate 2 hours in the fish sauce, oyster sauce, palm sugar and white pepper. No longer -- the salt starts to cure the surface.
Pat it dry before it goes on. Wet meat steams and will not take a crust.
HIGH HEAT, AND TURN IT OFTEN. Every 2 minutes, 12 to 16 minutes in all for medium rare. Frequent turning builds an even crust without burning the fat that renders out.
If the fat flares, move it off the direct heat rather than pressing it down.
REST IT 10 FULL MINUTES on a board. This is not optional: cut straight off the grill, most of what you cooked ends up on the board.
The dip is made while it rests. Stir everything together and let it sit 5 minutes so the rice powder swells and thickens it slightly.
SLICE ACROSS THE GRAIN, thinly, at a slight angle. With the grain it is chewy however well it was cooked.
Pour any juice from the board into the dip, and serve the dip alongside rather than over the meat.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Thailand · All recipes